The worsening measles outbreak in the United States cannot be solely blamed on the Trump administration or Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Republican president’s controversial choice as secretary of health and human services.
A religious resistance to immunization within a Mennonite community in one Texas county is also at the core of the most serious outbreak, which has now stretched to five states, numbered cases in the hundreds and claimed three lives.
Still, having a vaccine skeptic in charge of the nation’s leading health agency does encourage those who refuse to be vaccinated or have their children vaccinated, thus endangering not only them but others, such as children too young to be vaccinated.
Kennedy has tried recently to undo some of the damage he has done to the public’s trust in vaccination. In social media posts and in news interviews, he has encouraged people to get the measles vaccine, but that advice is not only being delivered late but also inconsistently. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which Kennedy ridded of longtime vaccination proponents, as late as Sunday was half-hearted in its endorsement, noting the efficacy of the measles vaccine while emphasizing that getting the shots was a “personal choice” and should be discussed with one’s doctor.What is there to discuss?
Decades of research and experience have proven that the measles vaccine is safe and effective. The messaging from the government and the medical community had previously been consistent about this. As a result, childhood vaccination rates against the extremely contagious and potentially fatal illness were so high that measles had been considered officially eradicated in this country since 2000.
The disease is now experiencing a resurgence, thanks to the skepticism against all vaccines that multiplied in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and was given credence by high-profile, anti-science public figures, such as Kennedy. Only a little more than three months into the year, the U.S. has more than double the number of measles cases it saw all last year. The eradicated designation is now in danger of being lifted. The resurgence of measles will not be an isolated phenomenon unless America reverses course and again lets the scientists and doctors, not the conspiracy theorists, direct health policy. There are many other diseases and illnesses that have been essentially eliminated or their harmful impacts minimized through vaccination. To turn this nation’s back on decades of medical progress would be a tragedy, producing suffering and deaths that are completely avoidable.
